


Christmas Sweaters, Carols, and Eggnog

by fElBiTeR



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alcohol, Alex Deserves To Be Happy On Christmas, Canon Compliant, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas In July Oopsies My Bad, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Humor, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Say It Together With Me So We Can Manifest It Into Reality, The AR Groupchat Put Me Up To This
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25171720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fElBiTeR/pseuds/fElBiTeR
Summary: Feeling a bit out of sorts on Christmas Eve, Alex fully intends to sleep through any and all festivities until he gets home and is greeted by an unconscious assassin in his living room that looks suspiciously like Yassen Gregorovich.
Relationships: Yassen Gregorovich & Alex Rider
Comments: 10
Kudos: 125





	Christmas Sweaters, Carols, and Eggnog

**Author's Note:**

> well. I had no intention of writing this until for some god awful reason the ar group chat started talking about christmas even though it is nowhere near december and extremely boiling hot outside... this probably isn't what they were thinking about when they said ugly christmas sweaters and carols and eggnog? but, nonetheless, here it is with minimal editing at best! I think I gave up on characterization midway through, but I hope you enjoy reading anyway!<3

Have fun, MI6 said to him. Enjoy your holiday, they said.

Alex nearly stumbles over an irresponsibly placed cardboard cutout of a snowman. He glares at it for a second, very tempted to kick it over, but reigns himself in before the urge can take control of his limbs. One of the Father Christmases on the street waves a hearty wave to him. Alex does not wave back, choosing to frown at a patch of dirt on the ground instead.

Maybe if he actually _had_ someone to spend the holiday with, he would be less miserable. But the facts are: both his parents are dead. Ian was assassinated. Jack… 

Alex shakes the violent image out his head. It’s still too soon. 

It’s almost pathetic, he thinks to himself, the way he might rather be out on another ridiculous MI6 mission in the middle of some foreign country than spend Xmas alone in his large, empty house. He would prefer the danger of bullets biting at his heel, adrenaline pumping, mindlessly sprinting his way out of another life-threatening situation, anything really, other than the sight of happy families soaking in the holiday cheer, the red, white, and green of decorations spilling around every corner, or even worse: Christmas carolers at Alex’s doorstep, asking for his parents, asking if his mum and dad are home in that terribly concerned tone.

It’s nearly dark. The fiery orange of the horizon has started to mellow out into a pastel pinkish-purple, casting the sky into a brilliant array of rich galaxy colors hiding behind a drapery of slow-moving clouds leftover from this morning. Alex has delayed returning to his dreary house all day long, but he can’t avoid his own living space forever.

By the time he gets back to the house in Chelsea left to him by Ian, the soft purple in the sky has dissolved into the emerging black of dusk.

Alex listens for footsteps because he can’t be too careful, and then he opens the door, steps in, and locks it behind him in one quick practiced motion. He empties his pockets onto a shelf near the door and toes his shoes and socks off, lazily padding into his living room barefoot, fully intending to head straight to his bedroom and sleep through tomorrow, and while he’s at it, sleep through Christmas.

Alex sucks in a sharp breath when he realizes there’s a body, lying prone on the floor near his sofa. His first instinct is to reach for the nearest decorative potted plant and prepare to throw it at the intruder. 

_I should leave the house_ , Alex thinks, quite intelligently. _Call MI6_. _Call some sort of law enforcement._

Alex turns his thinking off and does none of the above, instead choosing to approach the seemingly unconscious man on his living room floor.

The man is wearing all black, from head to toe, face positioned away from the angle at which Alex is standing.

Alex leans over and flips the body over with a grunt of effort and promptly freezes when he sees a familiar scar and close-cropped hair, except Yassen’s face is pale and sickly and his eyes are closed shut. There’s no possible way Yassen would allow himself to be unconscious and vulnerable in the presence of another person. Alex’s gaze drifts lower and he gasps at the dark, blood-soaked front of Yassen’s shirt. 

Alex immediately drops to his knees beside Yassen, deftly working to peel the other man’s shirt off. When he finally tugs the shirt free from over the assassin’s head and arms, Alex’s eyes zero in on a fresh, long laceration, running from Yassen’s upper abdomen to his navel, and several other minor cuts and abrasions all over his lower chest, pointedly ignoring the jagged bullet scarring higher up.

“Oh god,” Alex says and then runs to fetch the first aid kit from under his bathroom sink, washing his hands clean while he’s at it.

He stares at the cut-up body in front of him and then back at the few items remaining in the open first aid kit. It looks like most of the blood flow has actually stopped, and judging from the amount of blood-soaked into Yassen’s shirt, now discarded in a bin somewhere, the assassin isn’t going to die from blood loss.

 _Then why is Yassen still unconscious?_ Alex wonders. The other man isn’t even fatally wounded. Yassen has probably developed a high pain tolerance over the years, evident by the way he was still able to stay conscious and talk to Alex even after a gunshot wound to his chest. Alex shakes the memory away.

Alex snags a bowl from his kitchen, filling it with clean, cool water, carefully balancing it in one hand as he returns to the bathroom and grabs a fresh towel. He wets the towel and then carefully presses it over the largest wound, wringing it dry over his carpet before dipping it back into the bowl of water in measured intervals. He’s been meaning to replace his carpet. This just gives him an extra incentive.

… He’ll need to come up with a way to explain the large patch of blood in the centre, though.

Yassen hasn’t moved an inch. If it weren’t for the slow up and down of the assassin’s chest, Alex might have mistaken him for dead.

After washing the man’s wounds thoroughly with water, Alex rolls his sleeves up and reaches for a bag of unopened cotton pads and then hovers for a moment, unsure, over the peroxide and Betadine. 

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” Alex points. His finger lands on the orange bottle. “Betadine it is.”

He uncaps it and pour some onto a clean cotton pad, then carefully dabs Yassen’s wounds. He switches to a new cotton pad every time he feels like it. He’s probably wasting a lot of them because he has no idea what he’s doing.

If it were Alex lying there, he would be struggling to hold his tears back at the burning pain. He doesn’t have a very high pain tolerance for injuries. Even unconscious, Yassen barely twitches.

Alex stops with the Betadine and switches over to generously applying a tube of Neosporin over the wounds. He hesitates, staring at the pack of rolled-up gauze in the kit. In for a penny, in for a pound. He bandages the lacerations and cuts as best as he can with his minimal first aid training.

He’s used up most of the material in the first aid kit. He’ll need to restock after this.

Alex exhales and gingerly pats the bandages once, sincerely hoping that he didn’t just make everything much worse.

Maybe he should have just shaken Yassen awake and made the assassin clean his own wounds, but that would have been a tad bit mean. He picks up the bowl of dirtied water and prepares to go dump it into the nearest sink.

“I have no clue what I’m doing,” Alex says out loud, truthfully.

“That doesn’t sound very reassuring.”

Alex startles at the voice, dropping the bowl from his hands with a clatter. Water spills everywhere.

“Oh,” Alex says, like he didn’t just ruin his carpet even further. “You’re awake.”

“You should pay more attention to your surroundings,” Yassen chides, voice slightly slurred.

“Why are you here?” Alex asks, all of a sudden keenly aware of the imposing presence of the assassin, now that he’s conscious. He tenses and backs away cautiously when Yassen lifts himself onto his elbows.

Yassen ignores Alex’s question in favor of staring down at the bandages on his chest.

“I did those,” Alex blurts. “But I’m not quite sure…” _if I did it correctly_.

Yassen looks at Alex like he’s suddenly grown three heads. “What?” Alex grumbles defensively.

“Tell me exactly what you did,” Yassen orders, speaking slowly, the odd slur in his voice lessening with each passing second.

Normally, Alex would have a snappy comeback prepared on the tip of his tongue, but Yassen looks tired, sounds tired, and immediately Alex wonders how much sleep he’s gotten in the last week. Not much, he guesses.

Alex sighs and does as Yassen asks, explaining each step of what he did in highly specific detail, excluding any and all instances of him freezing up.

“Did you find me lying here?” Yassen pulls himself up to his feet with the assistance of the edges of the sofa. 

“Uh, yeah?” Alex responds, puzzled at the obviousness of the question. 

“I’m leaving,” Yassen states, as-a-matter-of-factly. The previous hazy unevenness in his pronunciation is completely gone from his voice. No more slurring. _Oh_ , Alex realizes. _It was a Russian accent._

Yassen takes two experimental steps. He doesn’t immediately topple over and nods at this.

“Are you really okay to be up and moving already…?” Alex trails off, pointedly avoiding Yassen’s gaze.

Yassen answers him by walking to the bathroom and shutting the door like he owns the place.

“Alright then.” Alex blinks, feeling unreasonably hurt and very far away from his physical body. He grabs his wallet and keys and leaves the assassin to the privacy of Alex’s own home, proceeding to mindlessly wander several blocks in a random direction.

He walks and walks and walks past colorful Christmas decorations, sparkly lights wrapped around carefully trimmed trees, glittering ornaments, and glowing wreaths, past happy families laughing so carefree, untroubled giggles carrying in the wind like the gentle tinkle of bells, walks past what could have been him in another lifetime. Alex walks until he spots a scrappy general store nearly hidden away behind a large car park. He ducks inside.

No one else is out shopping for necessities at this hour. The almost clinical stark white walls and ceiling make Alex feel very, very cold and lonely, all of a sudden. He wants—he doesn’t know what he wants. No... Alex knows exactly what he wants. He can’t have any of it. He doesn’t need it, either.

He exhales shakily and grabs a small shopping basket, making a bee-line straight towards where he thinks the medical supplies are. Alex fills his basket with several brands of medical cream, elastic bandages, butterfly bandages, and strips of gauze, then heads to the front to pay for it all.

On the way there, a flash of red catches Alex’s eye. He finds himself pausing in front of a mannequin wearing a Christmas sweater.

The jumper is either black or a dark navy blue, with several white spots meant to symbolize snowflakes, probably. The reindeer featured in the front—Rudolph, Alex presumes—has two large ugly buck teeth positioned below a fluffy red pom pom meant to be Rudolph’s glowing nose and a frilly red scarf wrapped around its skinny reindeer neck. It’s absolutely hideous.

“This is perfect,” Alex says aloud to himself and then proceeds to buy it for no reason at all. None at all. He doesn’t look at the total price on the cash register even once, instead sliding more than enough banknotes to the cashier and telling them to keep the change.

Alex arrives home with two brown paper bags, greeted by the sight of Yassen waiting for him on his sofa. The bloody spot on the carpet only serves as a reminder to Alex of what just transpired, less than an hour ago, but the used cotton pads and towel have been put away.

“Alex,” Yassen says, quickly standing to his feet.

“I thought you said you were leaving,” Alex responds, indifferently, setting his bags down.

“I was, but I owe you an explanation.” Yassen inclines his head. “There—”

“—You don’t owe me anything,” Alex disagrees, rudely cutting the assassin off. He removes his shoes. 

Yassen makes a noise of exasperation. “ _Listen_ , little Alex,” he advises sternly.

Alex is being childish, he knows, but he’s just acting his age. He stubbornly glowers at the bags on the floor for five whole rebellious minutes before he sighs and gives Yassen a pointed look that says ‘I’m listening, now what?’

“There was an ambush prepared for me at my last job. They had a drug… and I was in the area. The final thought I had was that I needed to get to one of my safehouses. I must have—I must have come here,” Yassen says, eyes slightly wider than usual and overall appearing a little bit shocked at his own words. 

“To _me_?” Alex splutters, incredulous. A vaguely uncomfortable look crosses the other man’s face before it settles back into a blank, muted expression.

“Yes, to you.” They both take a moment to think very carefully about the implications of this. The drugs explain why Yassen was unconscious.

Whatever cold feeling Alex was drowning in earlier mellows out into a fond annoyance. This is as close to an apology as he’s going to get from Yassen.

Speaking of which, Yassen is still shirtless and unfairly unaffected by the bandaged gash across his chest or by the chill of Alex’s severely under-heated house.

Alex bends down and picks up the bag with the atrocious Christmas jumper, dumping the contents unceremoniously into one hand and tossing the paper bag off to the side, all while Yassen watches him curiously.

“None of my clothes will fit you,” Alex explains, rubbing the back of his neck, gesturing for the assassin to take whatever’s in his hand.

“I am well aware,” Yassen responds, staring at the monstrosity in Alex’s arms. The assassin probably searched Alex's closet while he was out. Rude.

“You might catch a cold,” Alex tries again.

“I’m Russian,” Yassen says plainly, like it explains everything. Alex averts his eyes. 

_This was an awful idea,_ he thinks, a creeping sense of insecurity crawling into his head. He snuffs it out by abruptly shoving the jumper into Yassen’s chest.

After a beat of contemplative silence, Yassen tentatively takes the sweater from Alex’s hands and unfolds it, examining the design on the front with an unguarded look of bewilderment. Alex gazes at him eagerly and doesn’t even try to hide it.

Yassen reluctantly slips the ugly Christmas sweater on. It’s about two sizes too large. 

“It’s perfect,” Alex says. “Brilliant.”

Alex wants to take a photo oh-so-very badly, but he knows that the moment he takes his mobile out and Yassen gleans his intentions, he can say goodbye to his phone and everything on it. Instead, Alex takes in the sight and tries to ingrain it into the back of his brain. Yassen, deadly contract killer, in his house, wearing an ugly Xmas jumper _Alex_ bought for him. There’s no way he’s awake right now.

Alex pinches his forearm just to be sure. “Ouch,” he says, but it really doesn’t hurt much. He’s awake. He’s awake and Yassen voluntarily wore the stupid sweater Alex bought on impulse for him and he waited for Alex to return instead of leaving immediately like he said he would.

Alex allows himself to grin cheekily, quickly closing the space in between them to sneak a quick squeeze of the ridiculously large scarlet pom pom on Rudolph’s nose. “Happy Christmas.”

“What—” Yassen begins to say, blandly, but then cuts himself off with a shake of his head, probably really not looking forward to whatever answer Alex might come up with for his abandoned question.

Alex jumps slightly when a buzzing sound floods his house. Yassen looks vaguely alarmed by the noise and very prepared to leave through an escape route he probably already has planned out in his head.

“Oh, right,” Alex laughs nervously. “That’s the doorbell.” The doorbell hasn’t been used since... forever, really. He’d nearly forgotten what it sounded like.

His explanation doesn’t stop Yassen from cautiously opening the front door himself, just in case. Alex peers over Yassen’s shoulder to study about ten festively dressed blokes gathered in front of his door.

The group of people begin to sing.

“No thank you,” Yassen says, politely, which for some reason is enough to send the young carolers scrambling to get off Alex’s doorstep. Yassen closes the door like nothing happened.

“You’ve scared off my Christmas carolers,” Alex pouts. “I was looking forward to hearing them sing.” He was, in reality, really not.

He plants himself onto a comfortable corner of his sofa. Yassen sits across from him on a beige loveseat.

“You owe me,” Alex declares boldly, “a Christmas carol.” 

“I do?” Yassen looks faintly amused.

“You do,” Alex nods. “They were going to sing ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,’ did you know? And now I’ve missed it. Because of you. So you owe me.”

Yassen doesn’t speak for a moment, and then slowly nods, yielding to Alex’s demands.

Alex can barely stop his mouth from falling wide open at the other man’s easy concession. He leans forward on the edge of his seat, warily eyeing the assassin who looks incredibly nonchalant for a dangerous contract killer who’s about to sing a Christmas carol on request.

Alex knows that Yassen is good at everything. Alex surviving Yassen in no more than three instances—mostly due to pure, dumb luck and some leniency on the Russian’s part—doesn’t take away from the fact that Yassen is one of Scorpia’s top assassins-for-hire, graceful and methodical and efficient and very, very thorough. Yassen can just about take apart and put together and use any weapon on this Earth, aim it and kill or maim or hurt his target with a deadly precision, drilled into him from a young age. He can pilot planes and helicopters and hot-wire motorbike and cars, but he really has no need since he can also just as easily pickpocket keys hooked to the belt loop of fancily tailor-made dress pants with a deft swipe of his light fingers, all without arousing any suspicion. He isn’t above doing dirty grunt work and he can disguise himself as anyone, slip in and out of crowds undetected, past tight airport security, slip right through the fingers of MI6’s best agents. Alex knows that Yassen is fluent in at least seven other languages and probably a lot more. Alex can go on and on.

The point is, Yassen is good at _everything_.

Alex doesn’t really know what he’s expecting when Yassen opens his mouth to sing, but it isn’t _this._

The assassin is bloody _awful_.

Yassen’s voice warbles and somehow misses every single note of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” like a tone-deaf man who has never held a note correctly his entire life. He sings the first line with the full confidence in which he handles everything. It’s terrible. Then he sings the second line. There is no improvement. Then the third. It possibly gets even _worse_.

Alex can barely conceal his horror in time and desperately schools his facial expression into one of a blank impassiveness, twisting his body to obscure his face from Yassen’s line of sight. Yassen, who has mastered the art of staring blankly better than anyone else Alex has ever known, will undoubtedly see right through Alex’s paper-thin facade of neutrality. Once he sees the open expression of revulsion on Alex’s face, Yassen will stop singing. He _has_ to.

Alex turns back around and tries to look as disgusted as he can, not caring if it might earn him a bullet to the forehead.

It’s no use.

Yassen’s eyes are _closed_.

Alex sits through half of another horribly sung stanza before he wonders how long it would take for him to grab the throw pillow beside him and asphyxiate the assassin to death. 

...Yassen could probably turn the situation around and suffocate Alex even with his eyes closed. Never mind then. Alex ceases that line of thinking immediately before Yassen can detect his thoughts, and instead lifts his hands to his ears to block out the awful din of the Russian’s singing.

Yassen is halfway through the song, still warbling away, completely butchering the tune, eyes shut without a care in the world, face furrowed into a look of focused concentration. He actually looks kind of serene.

Would Yassen’s feelings be hurt if Alex told him to shut up?

… Does he even have feelings?

Alex groans in an agonized pain, pressing his palms harder against his ears. He regrets asking. He regrets it very much.

Is this song _supposed_ to be this lengthy?

After the line ‘Prince of peace’, some higher being takes pity on Alex and Yassen finally opens his eyes. Alex immediately spots a brief flash of something sly in his usually closed-off expression.

Alex's jaw drops in a sudden realization. “You’re singing like crap _deliberately_ …! You complete and utter arsehole!”

Yassen instantly stops singing and the horrible notes that previously filled the emptiness of Alex’s house for the last two minutes are replaced by unexpected peals of laughter, heavy and unrestrained.

“I can’t believe you,” Alex mutters, lowering his arms from his ears and sinking into his couch with a growing sense of humiliation. “I can’t believe you put me through that. I can’t believe I didn’t ask you to stop because I wanted to be _polite_.”

“Was it really that bad?” Yassen teases. There’s still hints of laughter scattered all throughout his tone. Alex sinks further down, determined to hide his bright pink face in the wide gaps of the couch. 

“Bloody awful,” Alex says, but it’s muffled by the fabric pressed against his entire face. 

He feels a glowing warmth in his chest from something other than his own flushed embarrassment, an indescribable swirl of emotion that swells in his throat and stings slightly behind his eyes. Alex pushes his face even further into the sofa at the sudden wetness on his cheeks. 

Judging from the rustling behind him, Yassen has just stood up. Alex quickly wipes the stray tears away with the sleeves of his shirt. There are audible footsteps when Yassen heads for where Alex thinks the kitchen is, footsteps that grow quieter as the man walks further away. It’s really a nicety on Yassen’s part, for Alex’s sake. Alex knows that Yassen can move silently if he wants to.

“Stupid assassin,” he adds as an afterthought, voice sightly shaky, but only because he knows that Yassen can’t actually hear him.

Five minutes later, Yassen still hasn’t come back to the living room. Alex does not begin to worry. He doesn’t. It’s ridiculous. 

Instead of going to check what the assassin is doing, Alex makes himself more comfortable on the couch as a wave of sleepiness hits him. He yawns and rubs his eyes with the heels of his palm until dark spots dance across his blurry vision.

There isn’t anyone attacking them or anything. Yassen can handle himself even if someone does. 

Alex trusts Yassen not to destroy his house. 

He really shouldn’t.

Alex shuts his eyes and thinks of the rare smile on Yassen’s face, thinks of the crinkle of genuine delight at the corners of the assassin’s eyes and traps the fleeting image in his mind until his breathing evens out to a steady rhythm.

He doesn’t notice when someone drapes a blanket over his shivering form, a good half-hour later. When they pull away, Alex unconsciously reaches for them.

“Please,” Alex mumbles. “Don’t leave me, too.” A warm hand pauses before settling into Alex’s hair and staying there, gently stroking the loose strands in a comforting lull. 

Alex makes a throaty noise of contentment.

***

“Alex.”

Someone is shaking his shoulder.

“Alex,” they say, again. When that fails, the soft blanket Alex is clutching to is abruptly ripped from his fingers and a sudden cold chill replaces the previous warmth. Alex groans and buries his face into his palms.

“Sasha,” the soothing voice says, softly. “Wake up.”

The Russian diminutive sparks something in Alex’s chest. His eyes flutter open to the sight of Yassen offering him a mug of something cream-colored and hot. _It might be pois_ —

“—It’s not poisoned, Alex,” Yassen cuts Alex’s instinctive train of thought off, giving him a half-exasperated and half-amused look.

Alex takes the mug into his hands wordlessly, pressing his palms into the curved sides and allowing the heat of the mug to warm his cold fingers. He groggily looks up at Yassen. “What is this?”

“Eggnog,” Yassen says, simply.

“But I don’t have any eggnog…” Alex trails off, momentarily confused. His eyes widen in understanding. “ _Oh_.”

Yassen made eggnog in his kitchen. The thought is bizarrely domestic.

The entire night has been peculiar. Alex doesn’t mind it at all.

He pats around the sofa and his pockets with one hand for his phone.

“It’s past midnight,” Yassen supplies helpfully, settling back into the loveseat.

Alex lowers his lips and takes a sip of the eggnog Yassen made, wincing briefly at the heat. Yassen mirrors him, drinking from his own mug.

Alex makes a face, scrunching his nose at the strong, undecipherable flavors.

“It’s perfect,” Yassen says, amusement coloring his voice. He’s mocking Alex’s similar words from earlier about the jumper and staring right at Alex's face as he does it. Alex rolls his eyes at him and then takes another sip, wincing again at the taste.

“Where did you get the alcohol to make this?” Alex asks, curiously, boredly tapping his fingers against the side of the cup.

“I found it,” Yassen shrugs and says nothing else. The room suddenly grows warmer, cozier, and suddenly everything feels a lot more… heightened.

“How _much_ alcohol did you put in this?” Alex squints down at his mug in scrutiny.

Yassen stares at him. “How much do you think?”

“I’m drinking responsibly in the presence of an adult,” Alex declares before swallowing another generous mouthful.

Neither of them say anything for a good ten minutes and Alex soaks in the strange warmth of the moment before a thought crosses his racing mind.

“Can you—” Alex hesitates. He clears his throat and tries again. “Can you actually sing?”

“Can I sing well, you mean?” Yassen raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Alex nods, trying not to sound too hopeful. It probably shows on his face anyway.

Yassen pauses, and then exhales steadily. He begins to sing for the second time that night, exclusively for Alex.

There is none of the harsh clashing dissonance from earlier, only a gentle, raspy, and melodic rendition of the Christmas carol.

Alex’s breath involuntarily hitches at the unexpected pleasantness of the other man’s voice. Of course Yassen is good at singing. Of course he is. The assassin has no weaknesses.

Alex huffs at the thought but finds himself genuinely listening intently to the way Yassen’s voice gently carves out the melodies of the stanzas and enunciates certain words with some sort of meaningful emphasis. 

Yassen's lips twitch upward into an almost undetectable smile at having Alex’s complete and undivided attention, moving on to the third stanza with a talented ease.

No weaknesses, except one, maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> god, what did I even write,,, ugh I'm so soft for these two interacting
> 
> me: *doesn't know anything about christmas in the uk*


End file.
